Steadily growing its business for five decades, beverage distributor Café Soluble has proven its adaptability in a changing manufacturing landscape. But as the business grew over time, the company’s manual budgeting process beginning to stifle rather than promote corporate growth. Adaptive Planning, part of the Adaptive Suite, has helped the finance team create a much more efficient process, complete with real-time visibility into specific costs such as raw materials, energy, and more. That improved insight has created a clearer path for the business to continue growing at its current rate, and accelerate that growth in the future.

Challenges

On-premises solution was too complex to frequently run financial forecasts and budgets

Lack of planning and analysis across a variety of products and distribution channels, and lack of focus on performance by individual dimensions

Absence of a centralized system of record for all financial plans, budgets, and actuals

Results

Cut the time to close books and create new budgets, plans, and forecasts by 60%

Zero IT support needed to deploy and maintain the Adaptive Suite

Continuous visibility into profit margins, operating margins, and income performance

About:

Café Soluble is a Nicaragua-based beverage distributor founded in 1958. The company manufactures nutritional products such as coffee, soy products, and cereals, and distributes these and other third-party brands to customers throughout Central America.

We have new operational information, more ways to display and understand that information, and we’ve cut the time it takes to close our books and create new budgets, plans, and forecasts from one week to 2 days.

Positive Review of Adaptive Spreads through Nicaragua

"Our on-premises solution became too complex," said Calvo, explaining the manual process required to complete monthly close cycles, and repeatedly create financial forecasts, budgets, and plans for the company. "We manufacture and distribute an array of products, and we needed a solution that would work for the company as a whole and for each department. We were looking for a solution that was flexible and robust in operations, and that would give us quality and accurate data."

Looking for an alternative solution that would meet the company’s financial requirements, Calvo received a recommendation from a current Adaptive customer also based in Nicaragua.

"Adaptive was recommended because of the scalability and flexibility of the solution that was quick to deploy, and powerful in terms of automation and running scenarios."

Adaptive Partner Analitikal Enables Quick Implementation

Working with Adaptive Insights channel partner Analitikal, which performed all the consulting and implementation services, Café Soluble had Adaptive Planning, part of the Adaptive Suite, fully implemented within three months. According to Calvo, the results were even more immediate.

"We realized right away that Adaptive was intuitive and extremely easy to use," Calvo said. "We didn’t need a server connection or IT support to upload information. From the beginning we were able to do it ourselves, which was a huge time-saver."

Café Soluble Gets "Return on Insights"

From budget actuals, to income statements, to sales, to expenses, Café Soluble is able to more accurately measure and more intuitively share the status of key business metrics across departments.

"Every month we have users checking budgets vs. actuals, and every three months we update our broader operating expenses," Calvo explained. "Adaptive can handle all kinds of data analysis, allowing us to create dashboards and charts and graphs for expenses, sales, and financial indicators that are easy to understand."

Real-Time Indicators, Added Collaboration

"We focus on profit margins, operations margins, and income, and Adaptive helps us to follow all of these indicators in real-time. We look at raw materials costs, energy costs, and see the impact," Calvo continued. "So we have better visibility into how we are performing each month, and we are planning to expand this visibility in to other areas of our business."

"We have new operational information, more ways to display and understand that information, and we’ve cut the time it takes to close our books and create new budgets, plans, and forecasts from one week to 2 days," Calvo concluded. "That real-time view and time-savings are the two main reasons why we are so pleased with our use of Adaptive."

We focus on profit margins, operating margins, and income, and Adaptive Insights helps us to follow all of these indicators in real-time. We look at raw materials costs, energy costs, and see the impact. So we have better visibility into how we are performing each month, and we are planning to expand this visibility into other areas of our business.